Moving Meshes

Maria Blaisse is a multidisciplinary artist whose work can be understood as sculptures that function as costumes (or vice versa). Research into materials is a key part of her work, whose essential qualities include simplicity, clarity, beauty, durability and making optimal use of materials and their characteristics.

Using plaited bamboo strips, Blaisse made a number of flexible structures that interact with their wearer or user’s every movement. Intended for use in dance, the structures, called Moving Meshes, are based on three-dimensional geometric shapes such as the torus, sphere, and oloid, which expand, contract and morph as guided by the dancer wearing or interacting with them. When structured diagonally, the minimalistic material – bamboo – amplifies its own properties and becomes an expressionistic, dynamic material of its own. Moving Meshes structures were used in several dance performances as well as a video by Blaisse.